00030: Finally Letting Go!

16 Days, sixteen items

After 15 days of playing the 30-Day Minimalism Game, I’m starting to notice an awareness about the stuff I have in the house. This morning for example, I was in the bathroom and I noticed there are a few things on the bathroom counter. As soon as I saw them I said, “this is too much.” Right away I wondered about what items could be removed from the counter and placed in the drawers. While I didn’t do anything, the mere fact that I thought about it is a good sign that my conscious (and maybe my subconscious too) are aware of the stuff I keep around the house.

It looks like the today’s image shows sixteen random items when in reality six of them are random and ten of them have history. The hat, for example, was bought in Mexico City during my Christmas visit in 2018. I needed a hat to cover me from the sun. I ended up buying a hat that was more of an ornament than anything else. Silly queen I am!

For six years I worked at a private university. The pay was okay, the benefits were the best, most students were good people but there were many who carried privilege and entitlement as badges of honor. You may say there are that type of students everywhere but let me tell you, at this place, students would let you know that “you work for me” because their parents paid our salary. And because it was a private university, the administration would vent backwards to please the parents. Not fun at all.

This was my first full-time job as a professor and director of a program, where I created a theatre major, build a theatre program, and established a biannual International 10-minute play competition, a competition that became very successful. I was incredibly proud of my position and I felt very accomplished. Yet, the institution and I were not a match. I knew this four years into the job. By the time administration decided not to offer me tenure, I had already been searching for a way out. Despite the bitter memories from that job, I kept a souvenir with me. It was the first time my name had been printed on a writing pad, with the university logo and my official titled, Theatre Program Director. For an immigrant, who did not speak English and lived in poverty for several years, this is in fact, an incredible accomplishment. I’m over it now.

The other eight items are posters from productions of plays I’ve written and have been produced. They are in great condition because they were all laminated. But, at this stage in my life, I don’t know the reason to keep them. Yes, they’re proof my plays have been produced but, well, my resume shows that. And some of those produced plays have been published so…. at this time they have become accumulated stuff. With the posters or not, one fact remains: my plays were produced and continue to be produced. So I guess it is time to let these poster go and move on. #carlosmanuelspeaksthetruth.